Medical staff member Paul W. Davies, MD, was sworn in on September 18 as Maryland’s first Chairman of the Medical Marijuana Commission. This marks a historic development in Maryland’s journey toward legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes. Gov. Martin O’Malley named 11 people, including health professionals, lawyers, a police chief, and a prosecutor to a commission to oversee Maryland’s new law legalizing marijuana use for medical reasons.

The law limits distribution of cannabis to a small number of academic medical centers. The commission has the authority to permit the centers to design and implement programs that make marijuana available to defined groups of patients. The marijuana commission is scheduled to have its first meeting in Baltimore on September 24.

Dr. Davies is the founder and CEO of Kure Pain Management, is board-certified in both anesthesia and pain management. Dr. Davies was a post-doctoral fellow in pain management at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He earned his medical degree from the University of Manchester, England. He has trained at the University of Pittsburgh, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia and at the Johns Hopkins University Medical Center in Baltimore.